Council approves sale of land adjacent to Gardner Lake

Council members will host another work session before voting on proposed updated property codes.

Council member Kristina Harrison requested that voting on the proposal be delayed during a meeting Feb. 21. Harrison said she’s received more feedback on the property code update than on any other topic since she’s been on the council.

Initially, the code update was to be decided during a March 7 meeting. Instead, council members will discuss the codes during a work session the second week of March and vote on the issue March 21.

“I know there’ve been some misconceptions about what exactly (the property code update) entails,” Mundt told council members.

In a brief 30 minute council meeting Monday night, council members also approved the sale of certain pieces of property at Gardner Lake to residents. Currently, the city of Gardner owns land between many homes that border the lake and the lake itself.

Property owners will incur the cost of surveys and legal fees and pay the city 56 cents per square foot. If the price for one parcel is more than $500, the adjacent resident may pay the amount over the course of two years.

Commissioner Calvin Hayden, who represents Gardner and Edgerton on the Johnson County Board of Commissioners, congratulated the Gardner council on its work in the decision to sell parcels of Gardner Lake property to adjacent homeowners.

“This is exactly what happens when everybody gets together with no egos,” Hayden said. “Some residents have been waiting 40 years for this.”

In other business, council members:

• approved a preliminary development plan for the addition of a community center and eight, six-plex housing units at Bethel Estates. The subdivision currently houses seniors in 14, six-plex townhomes.

The new housing units were part of the developer’s original plans and part of the subdivisions third phase of development. The inclusion of a community center is new, however.

The community center will only be accessible through the development, although its back side will be on Oak Street. To blend with the surrounding neighborhood, it will look like a single family residence from Oak Street.

• amended an existing loan agreement between the Kansas Department of Transportation and the city. The initial agreement, created to help finance Moonlight Road construction, did not have the interest rate – 3.61 percent – included in the final paperwork. Stewart Fairburn told council members that the amendment was simple housekeeping, and both parties to the agreement utilized the same interest rate figure at the start.